Waltzingmouse Christmas card and Use Old Stash challenge

Hello everyone and welcome to Hayley who is a new follower this week. I hope you are having a good weekend and made good use of the extra hour we got when the clocks went back last night. I have a problem lying in these days so I was up extra early and when I went to put the kettle on, I was amazed by how the maple bush near the end of our garden was glowing like a bonfire in the golden light of early morning. I was a bit bleary eyed but I managed to grab my camera and get outside.

I'm sorry its not a brilliant picture but the colour is about right. Don't you just love autumn!

Anyway, I decided to get on with another Christmas card and this time used the Waltzingmouse sketch No 71

and came up with this card which is a pretty straight forward interpretation of the sketch.

I stamped the hooped basket from Spring Baskets, embossed it in white and then cut across the top of the basket with a craft knife so I could slip some presents inside.

The presents were stamped from Stamp N Stor Tumbling Packages and I cut them out before inserting them in the basket. I stamped and embossed a couple of the bows onto red card and cut them out to adorn the basket and heart circle. The sentiment came from Frame It and the dies are from Papertrey Ink. I've had the gingham ribbon in my stash for years so it was good to get to use it and as I've had all the stamps for a long time, this card counts as my October Use Old Stash Challenge. I'm also goiing to enter this into the Bah Humbug challenge which is to use die cuts.

Thanks for looking and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Hugs

Carol x

Halloween treat bags

Hello everyone and welcome to Erin who is a new follower this week.

Its the 25th of the month and time for the Papertrey Ink October Blog Hop

The task this month is to use this inspiration picture for a project.

I chose to use the pumpkin image and the orange colours to make some Halloween treat bags. As I was mass producing these, I took photos as I went along so if you are in a hurry to see all the other lovely offerings from other blog hoppers, just scroll down.

I thought that the Papertrey ink dies from Sending you and Mat stack 3 resemble gravestones and would be a good base for my projects along with a stamp set that  blogger Margaret

kindly sent to me some time ago and I was waiting for Halloween to use.

I took a simple sandwich bag which I got from the local pound shop ( a real bargain at 50 bags for £1)

and stamped a couple of images onto it with Memento tuxedo black ink

before putting some little Halloween treats into each bag.

I  die cut the tag base from white card with the PTI die and stamped the pumpkin image and one of the words

before roughly colouring the pumpkin with the Copic Orange Zest trio.

I then sponged on Spiced Marmalade distress ink and stamped the face onto the pumpkin,

 before punching a couple of holes in the tag, threading some black ribbon through and tying it to the bag.

I piled all the bags into a basket ready for all the little Trick or Treaters who call on the spookiest night of the year.

This was so simple and quick to do that I was sorry I came to the end!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the hop - I can't wait to see what everyone has to inspire us with this month.

Hugs

Carol

Waltzing Mouse Christmas Thank you card

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend. Our choir had a singing workshop followed by a concert at the newly renovated Victoria Baths in Manchester and we had a great time. The acoustics were amazing and it was fun to sing with a crowd in the bath as it were! I'd like to Thank Case Study for making me a top pick last week, I was thrilled when I saw all the fabulous entries they could have chosen. Welcome to Sveta who became a follower of the blog this week

Today is the Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz on the theme of being thankful

and as I had to drop out at the last minute for the previous waltz, I decided to kill two birds with one stone this time and also try to use the current Waltzing Mouse Sketch challenge. In an unashamed attempt to motivate myself to get on with my Christmas cards, I resolved to try to make one for all challenges I enter up to the big day. I laughed when I saw the sketch


but armed with my resolve I convinced myself that that I could make this into a Christmas Thank you card and came up with this:-

click to enlarge

I used the Block tree shape from Teeny Trees and embossed the star lights in white. I cut and matted a tag shape and sewed round the edges with green floss. For the background paper, I randomly stamped a tiny star shape in red and then matted it onto green card. A sentiment from Fancy Phrases was embossed in white with a couple of snowflakes onto a banner strip at the base of the tag. To finish it off I added a satin bow with a snowflake button and a couple of tiny gingerbread people at the base of the tree.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the waltz!

Hugs

Carol x

Waltzing Mouse Celebrate card

Hello everyone,

I'd like to welcome Melody as a new follower and take a moment to thank those of you who follow or visit the blog, especially if you leave a message because it really gives me a lift.

Today I decided to make something for the Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge which this week is a simple tag shape.



As this required a simple design, I decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at distressing. I don't know about you, but I see so many wonderful examples of shabby chic and distressed cards, but when I sit to make one, I always end up with a dirty looking mess. First of all I made the tag using the Eat Cake stamps. I silver embossed the cake plate and distressed the tag before matting it onto some pink paper.

I thought this might look better on a card so I made a couple of mats and mounted it, distressing the edges with Antique Linen distress ink. And ......

Thanks for looking.

I ended up with a dirty looking card again. My inking with brighter coloured ink is not too bad and I really try to blend the ink well but something is not right. Oh well its done now and maybe I should just try and accept that shabby chic and distressing are not for me!

We're going of to Lake District tomorrow for a few days, so I hope this nice warm weather holds for just a little longer.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x